27 Oct Is There a Link Between Iron Intake and Stroke?

MedicalResearch.com Interview with:

Dipender Gill

Dipender Gill
Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust
London, United Kingdon 

MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?

Response: Iron status has previously been associated with risk of various types of cardiovascular disease, including stroke. However, the observational research methodologies that identified these associations can be affected by confounding from environmental factors and reverse causation.

We used randomly allocated genetic variants that affect iron status to investigate its effect on risk of different types of ischemic stroke, and found evidence to support that higher iron status increases risk of cardioembolic stroke.

MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?

Response: A previous study using the same genetic approach found that higher iron status protects against risk of coronary artery disease.

The main take home message from our current paper is that the role of iron in cardiovascular disease is not so clear-cut! It may have distinct effects on different types of cardiovascular disease. Further research is required to disentangle this.

MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this work? 

Response: Further work might explore the role of iron status on atherosclerosis and thrombosis respectively, two of the major underlying mechanisms in cardiovascular disease. 

MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?

Response: I would like to thank the Wellcome 4i Clinical PhD Programme at Imperial College London for funding my research, Drs Abbas Dehghan and Ioanna Tzoulaki for their supervision, and Grace Monori for helping me perform this work.

Citation:

Iron Status and Risk of Stroke: A Mendelian Randomization Study
Dipender Gill, Grace Monori, Ioanna Tzoulaki, and Abbas Dehghan
Originally published 25 Oct 2018Stroke. 2018;0:STROKE AHA.118.022701

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Last Updated on October 27, 2018 by Marie Benz MD FAAD